


all is bright

by Lirazel



Category: Infinite (Band), K-POP RPF, K-pop, Korean Pop, Kpop-Fandom
Genre: Character of Faith, Friendship, Gen, Holidays, OT7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-26
Updated: 2013-12-26
Packaged: 2018-01-06 05:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1103191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirazel/pseuds/Lirazel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Why do I feel like we’re a married couple out with our kids?” </i><br/>Infinite takes a few hours out of their tour schedule to explore the Weihnachtsmarkt in Frankfurt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all is bright

**Author's Note:**

> When I started this story, we still thought Infinite was going to have an OGS show in Frankfurt. That obviously didn't happen, but just imagine this is taking place in a universe in which it did.

“ _Whoa_.”

 

Dongwoo’s already-large eyes seem to be expanding by millimeters every second, hundreds of lights reflected in their depths, and Sunggyu is beginning to think this is a bad idea.

 

Woohyun is obviously thinking the same thing, because his hand shoots out and grabs Dongwoo’s hood. “Dongwoo. Do not wander off. Do you understand? You have to _stay with us_. If we lose you here, we’ll never find you again, and then who’s going to take care of our rapping?”

 

“I can do it all,” Howon says, bumping his shoulder into Dongwoo’s, which does nothing to break Dongwoo’s enchantment. “Instead of Infinite H promotions, I can just do a solo debut.”

 

Dongwoo has his hands out like he’s trying to grab the entire scene in front of him. Woohyun tugs on Dongwoo’s hood again, hard enough that it actually makes Dongwoo sway in place. “Dongwoo! Did you hear me?”

 

“Okay, Woohyunnie,” Dongwoo answers, but he hasn’t dragged his eyes away from the sight in front of him, and Sunggyu sighs, pretty sure Dongwoo has no idea what he just agreed to.

 

“Maybe we should have just gone to a beer hall,” Woohyun says, meeting Sunggyu’s eyes.

 

Sunggyu snorts. “I thought this was the better option, after what happened in Paris.” They shudder in unison, remembering Sungyeol getting completely drunk on wine and crying about how he’s traveled all over the world and seen so many pretty girls and he still can’t get a girlfriend. That wasn’t too terribly out of the ordinary, but it took a turn for the comitragic when he pulled out his phone and called his brother, commanding Daeyeol to hold the phone up to Jureumi’s ear so he could sing her songs about how she’s the only woman who understands him. Myungsoo had thought the whole thing was so funny that he ended up sliding off his chair right under the table and staying there for a while laughing uproariously before falling asleep and having to be half-dragged home by the managers. And of course the next morning it was _Sunggyu_ who woke up with the headache. Stupid kids.

 

Before Woohyun can answer, he is jerked forward by the hood he’s still holding onto and only barely manages to keep hold of it. “Dongwoo! Seriously! He’s like a puppy!”

 

“I don’t think the puppies were ever this impossible,” Sunggyu points out.

 

“Oh, whatever, hyung.” This is Sungyeol, looking even taller than usual in his pea coat and long scarf, his fair cheeks flushed with the early evening cold and Myungsoo’s arms wrapped around one of his. “It’s amazing, your superpower that lets you remember things any way you want instead of the way they actually happened. Next you’ll be insisting you were never scared of them at all.”

 

“I wasn’t—that was for the show—“

 

“Okay, Sungjong and I are going that way,” Howon interrupts, pointing a mittened hand towards the silhouette of the Römer. “He wants to find a Nativity scene for his mom. We’ll text you when we want to find you.”

 

Sunggyu waves them off without any further instructions; any group containing Sungjong is the one he’s least worried about.

 

“I’m hungry,” Myungsoo announces, though his voice is muffled because he has his red nose planted against the wool of Sungyeol’s coat sleeve. “The lady at the hotel said there was food here. Let’s find some food.”

 

“Lee Sungyeol, if you two get drunk or lost or get into any trouble at all, I will make a leather jacket out of your ugly cat.” So what if she’d barely be big enough for one sleeve? It’s the threat that counts, and Sunggyu is very good at threats. He’s had lots of practice.

 

Sungyeol sneers at him. “Like you could. You’re scared of her, too.”

 

“Yeol! Come on!”

 

Before Sunggyu can reply that he is not in the slightest bit scared of Sungyeol’s cat monster, Sungyeol is dragged away by a very hungry best friend, leaving Sunggyu alone with the rest of the hyung line.

 

“Why do I feel like we’re a married couple out with our kids?” Woohyun asks, getting a firmer grip on Dongwoo’s hood.

 

Sunggyu cringes. “Don’t even joke about that.”

 

“Look at this one. I don’t think even a little kid could be more excited than he is.”

 

Sunggyu looks at Dongwoo’s shining face and wonders for the millionth time how someone can contain that much wonder at the world. Usually he doesn’t understand the fascination of whatever it is that’s enchanting Dongwoo, but at least this time he sees the appeal. The Frankfurt Weihnachtsmarkt is legitimately enchanting. It looks like something out of a movie or a fairyland: dozens of booths selling every imaginable Christmas-related thing, twinkling lights strung up everywhere, crowds of winter-bundled people shopping and eating, a carousel and a giant lit Christmas tree taller even than the buildings of the Römerberg and Paulsplatz. 

 

There had been a poster with pictures at the hotel and the maknae line and Dongwoo had demanded that they spend their precious few free hours here in Germany checking it out. Sunggyu hadn’t been too excited at the idea of being outside in the cold with lots of people when he could be warm and snuggly in his bed or in a cozy restaurant, but everyone else had thought it was a good idea and their managers had even promised not to follow them around—with the unstated threat of severe consequences if they misbehaved.

 

But Sunggyu has to admit that this is better than he’d imagined it. The lights and the Christmas decorations are festive and beautiful and he can smell half a dozen appetizing smells from booths selling foods he couldn’t possibly identify. If they can only make sure that Dongwoo doesn’t wander off, they could have a pretty okay time here.

 

“Dongwoo! Dammit, I thought I had him!”

 

Woohyun is staring at his hand like it’s betrayed him and Sunggyu can see the top of Dongwoo’s brightly knit cap bobbing away between the darker colors of the Germans’ winterwear.

 

Woohyun gives Sunggyu a strained smile. “Maybe it’ll be okay? He is an adult, after all, and he has his phone.”

 

Sunggyu isn’t convinced.

 

  
\---

 

  
“Christmas is really different here,” Howon notes, looking around at the booths with their colorful wares and the small twinkling lights just everywhere. There are so many people: old people buying paper cones of roasted nuts, little kids darting between legs, groups of teenagers taking pictures of each other in knitted hats. Because of movies and stuff, Howon had known that Christmas was pretty different in the West, but he’s never seen it up close before. Every single store they passed from when they first touched down in London has seemed to have full-  
on Christmas displays in each window and even the restaurants and hotels are decorated with lights and garlands and Christmas trees. It’s like Christmas is _everywhere_. “It’s less…couple-y.” Christmas in Korea is a romantic holiday to spend with your girlfriend or boyfriend, like Valentine’s Day only with Christmas music. It’s nothing like this.

 

“We had an American missionary visit our church once at Christmas,” Sungjong says, eyes scanning the stalls. “He said in America there are two kinds of Christmas—church Christmas, like Christians have everywhere. And family Christmas. Though for a lot of people they’re the same thing. Couple Christmas isn’t a thing there.”

 

“Sounds nice,” Howon says.

 

“We have our own family holidays. Seollal and Chuseok. Christmas was always a church holiday for me. Our church loved to celebrate.”

 

“I’ve never celebrated,” Howon says. “My ex-girlfriend didn’t really like romantic holidays. And the years I’ve been single it’s mostly chicken and soju complain-about-being-single time.”

 

Sungjong’s mouth curves into its catfish smile. “Yeah, I remember coming home from church last year and seeing you and Woohyun and Sungyeol playing strip poker. You’d think Sungyeol would learn by now not to play with you two. He’s the one who always ends up naked.”

 

Howon shrugs. “He’s got lots of tells.”

 

Sungjong pauses to admire the colorful glass ornaments shining in one booth. They look fragile, like if Howon breathed on them they’d shatter. His mom would love them, but there’s no way they’d make it all the way back to Korea in his suitcase. “I looked it up online and apparently they’ve been having a Christmas market here for 600 years. And selling a lot of the same things for most of that time.” His slender gloved finger touches a blue and green swirled glass ball lightly. “Though I do guess they add new things every century or so. I doubt that carousel was here for the first one,” Sungjong says, pointing towards the glowing merry-go-round with its circling animals, kids screaming with joy as they hang onto a horse’s neck. “And stuff for the kids.”

 

“Your crèche has probably been here all along, though,” Howon points out.

 

Sungjong gives him a wry smile. “Thanks for agreeing to go find it with me. I know you’re not into the Christian stuff.”

 

Howon shrugs. “Look at my options: follow Myungsoo and Sungyeol around watching Myungsoo eat everything in sight or stay with the marrieds and watch them try to keep Dongwoo corralled. Even if what you really wanted was to stare at a blank wall the whole time, you’d still be my best option.”

 

Sungjong rolls his eyes, flicking his newly-long-enough-again hair out of his eyes. “I’m so flattered.”

 

Howon grins, showing his canines. Sungjong knows good and well that Howon prefers his company to anyone else’s, and he’d hate it if Hoya actually said it out loud. For all his faith, Sungjong is not the sentimental type.

 

“Look, that booth has lots of wood-carved stuff. Maybe they’ll have a Nativity scene over there,” Hoya says, catching sight of a small booth stuffed practically to the ceiling with hand-carved items, the small old man inside looking like one of his wares in the illumination of the Christmas lights.

 

A smirk spreads across Sungjong’s face. “Let’s see if my haggling skills can translate to German.”

 

Howon has to laugh as he follows his friend. If anyone could haggle in a language he doesn’t speak, it’s Sungjong.

 

\---

 

“Okay,” Sungyeol says as his best friend finally de-latches from his arm and starts to scan the area. “What’s the plan of attack?”

 

Myungsoo looks down all the aisles of booths shooting off from this small square, forming little streets that can be clearly followed. There isn’t just one area for food, Sungyeol notes; food stands are scattered throughout the other kinds of stands. That makes it a bit harder to plan out how to best cover the area and make sure they don’t miss anything. 

 

“Try everything,” Myungsoo says firmly, eyes glinting as he eyes the nearest food-related booth. Sungyeol thinks he smells some sort of potatoes being fried.

 

“Well, obviously.” Myungsoo is Myungsoo, after all. Sungyeol is pretty sure he has a black hole inside of him. He’s also pretty sure he’s never seen his best friend actually full. “But which way do we go first? Do you want to start with snack foods and end with desserts? How much is our budget?”

 

Myungsoo shrugs and strides off towards the potato-smelling booth. “Let’s just try everything.”

 

Sungyeol hurries to catch up with him, the fog of his breath puffing out little smokeballs as he goes. “You are horrible at this. You have to have a plan. Like a mission. To make sure you do it right.”

 

Myungsoo’s head swings around, face suddenly lit with excitement. “Can we have codenames? Can I be Satoshi?”

 

“Codenames?” Sometimes Sungyeol can’t believe his best friend. Myungsoo can’t even decide which way they need to go first, and he wants codenames? “Do you think we’re resistance fighters or something? This isn’t Ilje gangjeomgi.”

 

Myungsoo looks half-disappointed, half-defiant. “It makes sense as a codename. ‘Gotta catch ‘em all.’ I’m gonna eat try everything.”

 

Of course Myungsoo would want to use some sort of anime codename, the little otaku. This kid. “I am not calling you Satoshi.”

 

Myungsoo wrinkles his nose at him and turns back to the food stall. Up close, it looks like potato cakes of some sort being fried on a griddle. It makes Sungyeol’s stomach twinge, and he reminds himself that he, unlike Myungsoo, does not have a bottomless pit instead of a stomach and that he has to pace himself. 

 

“Tell me what’s the best, and then I’ll try the really good stuff so I don’t waste room,” he commands, and Myungsoo ignores him as he points a finger at the cakes, gesturing for the middle-aged woman frying them to give him one. Sungyeol isn’t worried. Myungsoo won’t be able to keep from scarfing up whatever he thinks tastes best. It’s easy to tell when Myungsoo really likes something.

 

“Name?” Myungsoo says in English to the seller. “Uh—namen?” he tries again in German.

 

“Kartoffelpuffer,” the woman says agreeably.

 

“Kartoffelpuffer,” Myungsoo repeats, and the woman smiles—clearly Myungsoo pronounced it correctly. He always pronounces foods correctly, no matter if he’s never spoken the language before and can’t even say hello in it. Sungyeol shakes his head.

 

When the seller passes Myungsoo a potato-cake wrapped in a napkin and holds out her hand expectantly for payment, Myungsoo takes a step away from the booth and arches an eyebrow at Sungyeol.

 

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” Sungyeol says. “There is no way in hell I’m paying for you to stuff your face.”

 

“Hey, Sungyeol,” Myungsoo says conversationally as he sniffs at his snack, like Sungyeol hadn’t just said anything at all. “Remember that time I bought you a 1.27 million won laptop for your birthday?”

 

Sungyeol grinds his teeth. He cannot believe this kid. “Everyone thinks that you’re just so sweet and generous, giving your best friend such an expensive gift. But you really just did it so you can guilt me into buying you things for the rest of the year. Bastard.”

 

Myungsoo looks up at him from under his fringe, face completely innocent. Behind him, Sungyeol hears the seller say something, and he catches the word ‘schön.’ He really wishes he didn’t know what that meant, but he and Woohyun had been playing with a Korean-German dictionary app on the plane, and they’d made sure to figure out all the ways someone might call them attractive in German so they could fully appreciate fangirls’ screams. 

 

“There’s no way I’m going to be manipulated by a bastard like you,” Sungyeol reiterates. There’s no way.

 

Myungsoo just smiles at him, which looks ridiculous since he’s taken a huge bite of the potato-cake and it’s clearly hot—he’s holding his mouth half-open and steam is pouring out of it and Sungyeol can see the bites of potato and this kid is really gross. The seller clears her throat.

 

Sungyeol sighs as he reaches for his wallet. 

 

\---

 

“Woohyun, we’re supposed to be looking for Dongwoo,” Sunggyu reminds him as he watches Woohyun gleefully beeline towards a stall selling every conceivable sort of colorful hat. Most of them are completely ridiculous, and half of them Sunggyu doesn’t even know what they’re supposed to be. It’s like a child’s hat factory threw up, someone scooped up the results and stuffed them into a booth, and they’re now selling them at the Christmas market. Sunggyu has no idea what jester hats and that thing with the tentacles are supposed to have to do with Christmas.

 

“We’ll find him,” Woohyun says confidently, snagging a top hat with a bunch of colorful feathers tucked under the band. “This place isn’t _that_ big. Hey, do you think I should get this for Sungjong? Doesn’t it look a lot like the black tie version of the one he wore for ‘Man in Love’?”

 

“If you even hint at showing him that, he will kill you,” Sunggyu replies, eyeing the feathers. “You know he hates being reminded of that.” It was funny, really, how much Sungjong had liked that hat, putting the feathers on himself and insisting on wearing it, and then how completely stone-faced he’d gone when he found out that the fans thought it was silly. It was Sungjong’s one sartorial misstep—well, the only one he was responsible for instead of the stylists—and his eyes still go dangerous whenever anyone brings it up. Woohyun likes teasing Sungjong more than any of them, and Sunggyu, frankly, thinks it’s some sort of masochism thing. Like playing with matches in a gas station. Sooner or later it’s going to blow up in Woohyun’s face, and Sunggyu is _not_ going to save him. Woohyun brings these things on himself.

 

Woohyun grins, snapping a picture of the hat on his phone. “For if he pisses me off later,” he says, putting the hat back on its mannequin head and turning to a hatstand covered with even more ridiculous hats.

 

“Are we seriously going to stand here and look at stupid hats? That’s how we’re going to spend our free time in Germany?”

 

“Yup,” Woohyun affirms. “Oh, look, hyung, this one is perfect for you.”

 

‘This’ is a hat shaped like a flamingo, dark pink and with black legs that hang down on either side of the wearer’s face. It’s probably the stupidest thing Sunggyu has ever seen. 

 

“You’re an idiot,” he says flatly, crossing his arms, but Woohyun just waggles his eyebrows at him and sets the hat on Sunggyu’s head. Sunggyu stays still, glaring at him. Woohyun, of course, bursts into laughter.

 

“Oh, God, hyung, I have got to get a picture of this, this is the best thing I have ever seen.” Woohyun looks even more ridiculous than usual with tears squeezing out of his eyes like that. He always laughs too hard at stuff that isn’t funny.

 

Scowling, Sunggyu uncrosses his arm and reaches up to take off the hat, but Woohyun’s hand catches his wrist. “No, hyung, please! Let me take a picture! I promise I won’t post it on twitter!”

 

“If you posted it anywhere, I’d cut off all of your fingers and make you eat them.”

 

“I promise I won’t!” Woohyun crosses his chest with the hand that isn’t holding Sunggyu’s. “I’ll let you pick out one for me, too! We’ll take it together.”

 

Well. That is tempting. Sunggyu is silent for a moment. “ _Any_ hat I want?”

 

“Any hat, hyung, I promise,” Woohyun agrees eagerly. 

 

“And no Kibum?” The last thing Sunggyu needs is for Woohyun to send it to his sharp-tongued best friend.

 

“No Kibum.” Woohyun looks like he’s holding his breath, and Sunggyu has to sigh as he relents.

 

“Fine.”

 

Woohyun is clearly stupidly pleased with himself, but Sunggyu is determined that he’ll look decidedly less happy when he sees Sunggyu’s choice for him. He scans the booth carefully while ignoring Woohyun’s snickering behind him. An evil grin spreads across his face when he finds the perfect one.

 

Sure enough, Woohyun blanches when Sunggyu holds it out to him. “Oh, hyung, don’t you think something more like—“

 

“No.”

 

“But, hyung, I think this one here would be funnier and—“

 

“No.”

 

“Or that one, it’s totally ridiculous, Sungyeol would laugh his ass off—“

 

“Put on the hat, Nam.”

 

Meekly, Woohyun takes the hat from Sunggyu and winces as he puts it on his head. Sunggyu’s evil grin widens at Woohyun’s petulant look. “Okay, Nam, take your damn picture. And smile! We’re having _fun_!”

 

He’s pretty sure he hears Woohyun grumbling curses under his breath as he pulls out his phone and leans close to Sunggyu, looping their arms together. Sunggyu gives the camera an even look as the selca master snaps the picture, and soon as he hears the click, he swipes the flamingo hat off his head, handing it back to the bored teenage girl behind the counter. 

 

But he’s the one who laughs his ass off when he holds out his hand and Woohyun reluctantly puts the phone in it. Woohyun scowls, but Sunggyu doesn’t care, his mouth falling open and his head falling back as he laughs harder than he has in a while. The picture is even better than he’d hoped. Sure, he looks stupid with the flamingo legs hanging down the sides of his face, but it’s nothing compared to Woohyun’s forced, unconvincing smile underneath the brim of the pink cowboy hat with feathery fluff around the brim and pink rhinestones that spell out ‘hottie’ in English on one side and ‘boycrazy’ on the other.

 

Yeah, okay, this is a pretty good way to spend their free time in Frankfurt.

 

  
\--

 

  
“I think this is the one,” Sungjong says, and his voice is pitched low, almost reverent. Howon tries not to sigh with relief; he was beginning to think Sungjong would never find a small Nativity scene to take back to his mom the way he’d wanted to. They’ve gone from booth to booth, looking at dozens, in varying sizes from some so small Sungjong could hold the whole thing in his hand, to larger ones where the figures were clearly too large for them to get them back to Korea. All of them have been nice in their own way, some incredibly simple with no features and blocky carving, some painted intricately. But Sungjong hadn’t been satisfied with any of them. 

 

Howon hadn’t been impatient with Sungjong’s search, exactly. In the process, they’d gotten to look at lots of other things—Christmas tree ornaments made from every conceivable type of material, gloves and scarves and hats in many different designs, a booth full of Christmas albums (Sungjong got the seller to let them listen to a Sinatra one, but Howon was most pleased by a weird Swedish hip hop one that he had to buy just on principle), garlands and handknit stockings and candles and potpourri sachets and towels with reindeers embroidered on them and mugs with dancing Santas and beautiful wineglasses and animals made out of pinecones and Santas to sit on your fireplace and more kinds of toys for kids than Howon had known existed. Everywhere there’s something to look at, and Howon is definitely not bored. 

 

But Sungjong can be so picky sometimes, so hard to please when he has in his mind what it is that he wants, and though those times are rare, Howon honestly thinks that they fill him with more anxiety than they do Sungjong. Sungjong seems to assume that if he keeps looking long enough, he’ll find what he wants eventually, like it’s inconceivable that the world not provide him with exactly what he’s looking for. Weirdly, it seems to always do just that, though Howon always braces himself because he’s so sure that one day it won’t, and Sungjong will not be happy. Unhappy Sungjong means unhappy Howon.

 

But Sungjong is looking at the Nativity scene he’s found like it’s perfect, and Howon smiles to see it. This booth had been a long-shot; it was kind of drab and set back a little from the others and not nearly as well-lit, but they’d decided to take a chance. And this Nativity had held Sungjong’s eye, and Howon can understand why. The figures—Mary, Joseph, two little shepherds, three Magi, a few sheep, a cow, and of course the little baby-filled manger—are about the length of one of Sungjong’s fingers, only a little wider, and the little barn isn’t so big it will be hard to get it in Sungjong’s suitcase; the carving is simple but exquisite, the warm brown wood gleaming but unfinished. It’s straightforward and elegant and beautiful: very Sungjong.

 

Sungjong raises his head and nods at the bearded man behind the counter. Howon is a bit surprised that Sungjong doesn’t immediately launch into a round of back-and-forth on the price, but he doesn’t voice that as he watches the man move slowly to wrap each figure carefully in tissue paper. The man has a kind face, but Howon notes that his coat looks a bit threadbare, and he thinks the slow movements aren’t just because he’s being careful with Sungjong’s purchase.

 

When the man hands Sungjong the bag with the figures and names a price in quiet German, Sungjong hands him the right amount of bills on the first try. He’s done that in every country they’ve visited, and it blows Howon’s mind. Sometimes they all tease Sungjong so much that it’s easy to forget how smart he is, but then he’ll do something like memorize number amounts in each language they encounter and figure out the currency with one look, and Howon is reminded again. 

 

“You didn’t even try to get a good deal,” Howon says, nudging Sungjong’s arm as they walk away. Sungjong’s always driven a hard bargain.

 

Sungjong flicks his hair out of his eyes. Howon had missed that move for the past few months since the stylists cut his hair. “He didn’t look like he was exactly rolling in cash,” he says carelessly. “And it’s Christmas.”

 

Howon tries to hide his smile, always amused at how Sungjong tries to pretend like he isn’t a giant softie just like the rest of them. 

 

“Hyung will probably want us to meet up soon,” Sungjong says, shifting the bag with his purchase higher onto his arm. 

 

“Yeah, we should probably check out the crèche now so you can be sure to see it,” Howon agrees.

 

The crèche, Howon decides when they reach it, would probably be really unimpressive by day. The figures of Mary and Joseph, almost chin-high, and the baby in the manger have probably been in use for years, and would look dingy in daylight. But the little stable—more a wooden lean-to constructed out of roughly hewn planks—is cushioned with moss and twigs, creating a comforting-looking first home for the Christ-child, and the faces of his parents are lit really nicely by the surrounding lanterns and strings of Christmas lights. It’s pretty, and even with the sounds of the market behind them, it seems peaceful and reverent. 

 

But Howon is more captivated by Sungjong’s face as he looks at the scene. The paleness of his current hairstyle makes his eyes look even darker, his skin even whiter, his whole face even more fey and otherworldly in its beauty than usual. As much as they’ve all enjoyed their world tour, as much as they all burst with pride whenever they even think about it, as appreciative as they are of the fans and for this chance, they’ve also all been more stressed and exhausted and homesick with each passing day. But right now, none of that is showing on Sungjong’s face, which is as serene and lovely as a painted icon. Looking at his face so peaceful and content feels like rest to Howon.

 

  
\---

 

 

“How are you not full? And how have we seriously not tried every single thing here? Do they sit around all year trying to think up new foods to sell? How is it even possible for there to be this many?”

 

Myungsoo ignores Sungyeol’s demands, munching on chili-hot roasted almonds. “These are much better,” he says with a nod; he hadn’t been impressed by the ‘hot’ ones he’d ordered—’They didn’t even burn my tongue even at all!’—but apparently the ‘dangerously hot’ are acceptable. Sungyeol pulls off his glove, shoving it in his coat pocket, and snakes his fingers into the paper cone to snag a few nuts for himself. Okay, yeah, those are pretty good. Even if he’s so stuffed at this point that he barely has room in his stomach to fit even a few nuts in around the edges.

 

The problem with his plan—eat the things that Myungsoo seemed most enthusiastic about—is that he’d forgotten that Myungsoo gets really enthusiastic about eating _most_ foods. It’s true that he’ll latch onto one and eat only that for months on end till he becomes sick of it—though Sungyeol has noticed he’s back to eating udon again when it’s offered and he never really seemed to get over kimchi jjigae—but when he doesn’t have that option, he’ll eat whatever and eat it like it’s the best thing ever. He’s so serious about his food, not grinning or laughing while he eats, not really commenting on it, just focusing entirely on it till he’s done. Sungyeol frankly doesn’t get it. Food is great, sure, but it isn’t _that_ great. Not like girls or hearing fangirls scream because of your abs. 

 

But Myungsoo clearly doesn’t agree, and while there have been a few things he made faces at and tossed after one bite while Sungyeol smacked the back of his head and shrieked at him about wasting _Sungyeol’s_ money, most of the things he’s gulped down like they were the best thing he’s ever tasted. Consequently, Sungyeol has eaten more than he’d planned. A lot more. He’ll have to get Woohyun to promise to nag him into the gym to make up for it later.

 

“I think,” Myungsoo says, turning around in a full circle to take in their surroundings. “That that is it.”

 

“Oh, thank God,” Sungyeol says. “If I ate one more thing, it was all going to burst out of my belly like the alien in that movie with the badass lady.”

 

Myungsoo gives him a weird look, but then he’s probably never seen _Alien_ —Sungjong watches a lot of weird things at three in the morning, and Sungyeol should have learned by now not to join him—and Sungyeol doesn’t really feel like explaining it now.

 

“Whatever,” Sungyeol says dismissively. “I want to go lie flat on my back and moan for a while. Yes, that sounds good.”

 

“The others won’t be ready to go yet,” Myungsoo points out. “We still have an hour or so before the managers told us to be back.”

 

“But my stomach hurts,” Sungyeol whines, causing Myungsoo to roll his eyes. “I want to die!”

 

“I didn’t force all that food down your throat,” Myungsoo says, no sympathy on his face at all.

 

“Yeah, but it sucks watching someone else eat and I wanted to try real German stuff and it wasn’t like anyone else was going to let you drag them around while you stuff your scarily large gut and _somebody_ had to keep track of you so you didn’t get lured into a witch’s candy house and stuffed inside an oven.” Okay, so he maybe shouldn’t have let Sungjong talk him into reading _Grimms’ Fairy Tales_ with him last night when they reached Frankfurt. He’s pretty sure he’s never going to be able to bleach some of those images out of his mind. Who knew _Cinderella_ could be so traumatic? But he’d almost killed Sungjong when they got to the part about the stepsisters trying to fit their feet in the glass slipper.

 

Myungsoo’s face softens even as he rolls his eyes again. “Okay, fine. What do you want to do now?”

 

“Didn’t you just hear the thing about lying flat on my back and moaning?”

 

“What do you want to do _here_?”

 

Sungyeol ponders this for a moment. “Carousel,” he finally says.

 

“I am not letting you on that thing. You’ll puke after two seconds and traumatize the children.”

 

“I’ve puked in both of the other European cities we’ve visited. Might as well be three for three.” In London he’d gotten some sort of food-poisoning or something, but Paris was just too much wine. Sungyeol has a sensitive stomach. ‘You have sensitive everything,’ Sunggyu had said, and he didn’t make it sound like a compliment.

 

“No.”

 

“Fine. Let’s just sit on that bench over there and check out the girls.”

 

At the word ‘girls,’ something pained flashes across Myungsoo’s face, and Sungyeol knows he’s thinking of his own recently-ended try at romance. Sungyeol is glad that Myungsoo hadn’t been broken up with in a big dramatic fight as Sungyeol had suspected he might, but he knows the kind of drawn-out fading away still stings. He doesn’t think Myungsoo is heartbroken, precisely—the relationship hadn’t lasted long enough for that—but there’s a wistfulness in his eyes that Sungyeol’s not used to seeing there. 

 

But the emotion is gone as quickly as it came and Myungsoo lets Sungyeol drag him over to the bench and listens without snarking—much—to Sungyeol’s commentary on the girls as they pass by. And if he pulls out his camera and starts snapping pictures and occasionally gets distracted by passing children and makes silly faces at them and grins his dorky grin at them, well, that’s just Myungsoo. Sungyeol knows he can’t compete with the draw of small children, not when it comes to his best friend, and Myungsoo’s default reaction to everything is to take a picture of it.

 

“I really don’t know which country has the hottest women,” Sungyeol says sometime later, watching a girl in dangerously high—and really hot—leather boots stride away. She has nice legs. Really nice legs. “I thought I’d at least be able to mark a few of them off the list, but there are hot girls everywhere, and it’s going to be really hard to make up my chart and rank the countries.”

 

“Howon was kidding when he suggested you do that,” Myungsoo points out. “He didn’t think you’d do it. He was making fun of you.”

 

“It was a great idea!” Sungyeol counters. “And it’ll be useful in the future!”

 

“How could it possibly be useful, Yeol? Even if we get to go back to all those countries again, we’re still going to spend the whole time being dragged by managers from practice to practice and we won’t have any time to meet girls at all. It’ll be just exactly like this time.”

 

“Not when I visit as part of Infinite. When I visit those places just for fun.”

 

Myungsoo looks intrigued. “When are you going to find the time to do this?”

 

“After Infinite.” Myungsoo’s face closes off at the words, and Sungyeol should have expected that. None of them like to think about what their lives will be like after Infinite disbands—‘And it’ll happen sooner or later,’ Sungyeol has said more than once. ‘Even if we’re another Shinhwa and work into our thirties or even forties, eventually no one’s going to want to see our wrinkly asses creaking through attempts at dancing. Besides. I want to get laid before I’m sixty.’—but the thought seems to hurt Myungsoo most of all. 

 

Still, Sungyeol thinks it’s healthy to think about these things. He hopes Infinite has a long ride ahead of them yet, but he’s also honest with himself. Sooner or later, this moment—his toes curling in his shoes from the cold, in a foreign country with his best friend, on a world tour with his band—will be, just like every Infinite moment, just another memory or a few pictures on Myungsoo’s harddrive. Sungyeol doesn’t want to focus on the future so much that he doesn’t enjoy the present, but it’s good to think about these things every once in a while, to think about the things he can’t do now because he doesn’t have the freedom. Focusing on the good stuff that waits on the other side of his idol career is better than imagining the bad. “After we disband, I want to travel all over the world, all the places we’ve been but haven’t seen, all the places that aren’t big enough for tour stops. All of it.”

 

Myungsoo is still looking down. “The world’s pretty big.”

 

“Yeah, but not that big. And I’m going to create the best chart in the world—every single country ranked in order of how attractive its women are.”

 

He says it mostly just to nudge Myungsoo out of his funk, and it works: Myungsoo’s face twists up in that way that it does when he’s trying not to laugh. “I thought you wanted to get married as soon as you can. Won’t you at least have a girlfriend by then?”

 

“Sure. I’ll take her with me.”

 

Myungsoo chokes on an incredulous laugh. “Take her with you to check out all the other women?”

 

“Sure! I wouldn’t marry a woman who got pissed off if I just look.”

 

“Sungyeol, you are never going to get married. Ever.”

 

“Why not?” Sungyeol asks indignantly. “It’s not like I’d touch them. If I had a girlfriend or a wife, I would treat her really well and do everything for her and never, ever touch another woman. But I’d still look. There’s no harm in just looking. I appreciate women’s—“ he waves his hand in a grandiose gesture “—aesthetic qualities.”

 

Myungsoo snorts, not even trying to keep a straight face anymore. “Girl-watching is your favorite activity, you mean.”

 

“Same thing. Oh, look at her! Those are some _hips_.”

 

Myungsoo laughs, shaking his head, and even if Sungyeol’s waistband still feels painfully tight, this isn’t a bad moment. He thinks of walking through this Christmas market again, ten, twenty years from now. It’ll still look mostly the same, only the children’s faces will be different, and he’ll remember sitting with his best friend on a bench, making him laugh. 

 

  
\---

 

  
“Oh, God. He’s found a noona.”

 

Sunggyu follows Woohyun’s gaze, and sure enough, there’s Dongwoo animatedly—that’s an understatement; he’s practically bouncing in place—talking to a pretty woman at a stand selling lace angels ornaments. She looks a few years older than them, and she has a hand to her mouth, clearly trying to hold in her laughter, but she’s looking at Dongwoo like he’s the most wonderful person in the world—like Dongwoo looked at the market, all shining eyes and awe.

 

Woohyun groans. “How does he _do_ that? He doesn’t even speak German!”

 

“Desperation is its own language, I guess,” Sunggyu says, then immediately feels guilty. It isn’t Dongwoo’s fault that his disposition makes him want so badly to be in a relationship and his circumstances mean he can’t have one. Sunggyu gets pretty frustrated himself, and he doesn’t have the inherent need to be in love, to touch and spoil and dote, that Dongwoo does. It’s rough on their rapper, being perpetually single. Sungyeol’s unending sexual frustration is a source of jokes for his bandmates, but Dongwoo’s they treat gently. Or at least they try.

 

“C’mon,” Sunggyu instructs, and he and Woohyun head over towards the booth, getting separated a couple of times by the passing crowds.

 

“He hasn’t even noticed us,” Woohyun says when they’re only a few feet away.

 

“Who would notice us when there are pretty girls in red coats around?”

 

The woman looks good in her coat, her fluffy white scarf contrasting nicely with her dark hair and the flush in her cheeks. And there are cute little reindeer on her knitted gloves and Santas dangling from her earrings. No wonder she caught Dongwoo’s eye.

 

Dongwoo is jabbering away in what Sunggyu knows isn’t very coherent English, punctuating every sentence or two with a Korean phrase or a German word that probably has nothing to do with what he’s talking about. The woman probably speaks English, but there’s no way she’s understanding what he’s actually saying. She doesn’t seem to care, though, and clearly Dongwoo doesn’t either. They’re totally enthralled with each other.

 

Sunggyu knows he should go grab Dongwoo right now, but he hesitates, feeling strangely guilty at the thought. Dongwoo looks so _happy_ , relaxed and not nearly as tired as he has through the world tour. Dongwoo isn’t the type to complain, but his exhaustion shows more clearly than the other guys’ does, and it always makes Sunggyu want to wrap him up in blankets and send him to bed. Sometimes when he’s especially tired, he becomes subdued whenever a camera isn’t aimed at him or he isn’t on the stage, his smiles at half-wattage, and zones out almost as much as Myungsoo. But right now he’s full-on Dongwoo, and Sunggyu can’t really be surprised that the girl looks like she’s never seen anything like him. There isn’t anyone like Dongwoo in the world.

 

“Dongwoo!” Woohyun reaches out and grabs Dongwoo by the shoulder, and Dongwoo starts, some of the glittering light falling out of his eyes when he sees Woohyun. Sunggyu understands: it’s not that Dongwoo isn’t happy to see his friend—he’s always _ecstatic_ to see Woohyun—but for just a moment, he was probably pretending he was just a regular guy who could flirt with a pretty girl and maybe get her number and text her for a while and start dating and—

 

And coming back to reality is probably not fun. Sunggyu steps forward, bowing to the woman who gives him a smile in return. “We’re meeting up with the other guys to eat,” he explains to Dongwoo. “And then we need to go back and get some sleep if we’re going to put on a good performance tomorrow.”

 

There’s nothing quite as sad as a crestfallen expression on Dongwoo’s face, and his sigh reminds Sunggyu of how pitifully short this little break was. Only a few hours here and there to see little snippets of the countries they visit. ‘What’s even the point of going all over the world if you never get to _see_ the places?’ Sungjong had demanded back in Maryland—or was it Taipei? Sunggyu had been the good leader and rambled something about global branding and encouraging developing markets, but it had been halfhearted. Seeing fans in far-flung places all over the world that used to just be names on a map is a buzz like no other, but there’s something missing, and that something is getting to know the places those fans live.

 

Dongwoo glances at the woman with an expression of such longing that Sunggyu almost feels embarrassed for him, but she only blushes, dropping her eyes and then looking up at him through her eyelashes, and poor Dongwoo. Sunggyu feels terrible.

 

Woohyun looks like he does, too. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he says in English, waving his hand in some sort of gesture that Sunggyu can’t label and bobbing a bow. The girl smiles at him, and yeah, there’s some wistfulness there, but she looks like she understands.

 

“Auf wiedersehen,” Dongwoo says, bowing to her, and Sunggyu remembers that that means ‘till we meet again’ or something like that, and it’s terribly sad. Dongwoo will almost certainly never see this girl again, and he looks a lot older as he lets Woohyun steer him away.

 

“Dongwoo!”

 

The familiar name sounds different with the girl’s accent, but Dongwoo lights up like a candle as he spins around. She gestures him forward the way you call a dog, but Sunggyu reminds himself that that’s just what people do here. Dongwoo hurries back to her and she reaches into the stall and pulls out a small lace angel and presses it into his hand.

 

“Frohe Weihnachten,” she says and then a mischievous glint flares in her eyes, and she points up. Sunggyu and Woohyun’s necks crane back just as Dongwoo’s does, and Woohyun chokes when he sees the mistletoe dangling from the corner of the booth roof. Dongwoo’s eyes are even bigger than they were when he first saw the Christmas market, and her eyes are shining as she darts forward and presses a kiss to his cheek—not even his cheek, more like the corner of his mouth—before blushing red as her coat and darting off back inside the booth.

 

Sunggyu thinks that Dongwoo is going to float right off the ground like a cartoon character as he drifts back towards them, eyes glazed and a grin stretching his face so much it looks like it’s going to split in half. Sunggyu and Woohyun exchange glances and Sunggyu shakes his head. How do things like this happen to Dongwoo? What is it about him that gets complete strangers—pretty girls!—to kiss him in public?

 

Dongwoo lets out a little whoop as he bounds over to them and throws one arm around Sunggyu and one around Woohyun, crushing them to him in a hug. Woohyun breathes a whoof in Sunggyu’s ear, and it takes them a moment to extract themselves. Dongwoo is oblivious.

 

“Hyung, she was so pretty and nice—wasn’t she pretty, Nam-goon?—and she made all those angels herself and look!”

 

Dongwoo holds out his hand, displaying the small lace angel. It looks even smaller and more delicate against the violently multicolored pattern of Dongwoo’s mittens. It’s really beautiful and one look could tell it’s handmade.

 

“I’m gonna hang it on the bunk at home!” Dongwoo says, stowing it gently in his pocket and then bursting with his usual energy as he shoves his arms through Sunggyu and Woohyun’s so they’re walking with arms linked. “We took a picture and I’m going to put it there too and I’ll remember her always!”

 

Sunggyu and Woohyun share a look over Dongwoo’s head, but it’s more fond than anything. He’s pretty sure that girl will never forget Dongwoo either. Maybe Dongwoo can’t have a girlfriend, but just that brief moment of connection has stirred the light in his eyes. Sunggyu’s kind of glad he’d run off on his own. It was worth it.

 

  
\---

 

Howon is stomping his feet and Sungjong has his hands tucked into his armpits when hyung line joins them at the steps of the Römerberg. The temperature’s dropping quickly and soon it’ll be too cold for them to want to do anything but to take hot showers and crawl in bed. But first they’re going to eat something all together. Or at least that’s what Sunggyu thinks they’re going to do until Myungsoo and Sungyeol arrive.

 

“There is no way I am eating another thing. Not the tiniest piece of candy, not the most shriveled nut. No. Way.”

 

Sungyeol’s words are dramatic, but his face is completely serious. Sungjong ignores the outburst, retying his scarf around his neck. “Well, we haven’t eaten anything yet and I’m starving. What’s good here?”

 

At the question, Sungyeol snaps to attention, pained look melting away. “Okay. Myungsoo’s figured out the best combination of foods for dinner. Listen up. First you start with glühwein—“

 

“Wein,” Sunggyu interrupts. “That sounds like wine. Does that have alcohol in it? That sounds like alcohol. No alcohol. None. I am not going to listen to you serenade your cat-demon-thing again. No.”

 

Sungyeol makes a face at him. “Kinderpunsch doesn’t,” he concedes. “We looked it up.”

 

“Fine then. Gindepusch it is,” Sunggyu says, struggling with the unfamiliar word.

 

“Then a baked potato.”

 

Sungjong is not impressed. “What are we, poor people? A baked potato?”

 

“They’re good!” Myungsoo insists. “They put this white stuff all over them and they’re hot and steamy—they’re good!”

 

Sungyeol levels Sungjong a disapproving look. “Are you seriously arguing with the master? Really?”

 

Sungjong rolls his eyes and Sungyeol continues. “Then bratwurst.”

 

“I like the käsekrainer best,” Myungsoo volunteers. “But currywurst is good too.”

 

“Then some almonds,” Sungyeol says.

 

“The chili almonds are the best! But you have to get the really hot ones because people here are wimps about hot food,” Myungsoo says.

 

“And then lebkuchen for a finish!” Sungyeol says with a flourish.

 

“But don’t try the bethmännchen,” Myungsoo interjects, crinkling up his face. “It’s gross.”

 

“What the hell is lebkuchen?” Howon demands.

 

“It’s like gingerbread,” Sungyeol explains. “Like in stories?”

 

“You have to try it.” Myungsoo looks like such a little kid when he nods vehemently like that. 

 

Sunggyu feels that he’s done a lot of sighing today. “Okay, Myungsoo, thank you for that rundown.”

 

“Poffertjes are really good too! Oh, and kartoffelpuffer!”

 

“I’m sure everything’s good when you’re a bottomless pit,” Howon mutters, and Sungjong smacks his arm, though it doesn’t look like it actually hurts.

 

“Everybody, just—grab some stuff, okay? Meet back at these steps in twenty minutes.”

 

Sunggyu ends up with some sort of potato things and a delicious-smelling currywurst. He gets a hot chocolate instead of hot punch to satisfy Dongwoo, who seems to have accumulated a giant assortment of various sweets and had insisted that everyone needed dessert. When they gather back at the steps, everyone’s got something different—except for Sungyeol, who refuses even to take a drink out of Dongwoo’s mug—and they settle down on the stone steps to eat. 

 

Sunggyu has to take off his mittens to eat properly, and his fingers are freezing and he can feel the coldness of the stone beneath him seeping into his butt and the food, while delicious, is hot enough to burn his tongue, but Dongwoo is telling the others about the girl he met and Sungyeol is asking him for some sort of rating for some sort of chart he’s making and Sungjong carefully unrolls something from tissue paper and shows an appreciative Myungsoo a small carved figure, and Howon makes Woohyun laugh about some CD he’d bought, and Sunggyu can’t stop thinking about how a few months ago, he never thought he’d be spending early December in Germany, eating foreign food and laughing with his members. 

 

But then, he’d also have had a hard time believing a year or two ago that he’d be on a world tour—his own world tour, his and his friends’—at such a young age, and a few years before that he’d have scoffed if you told him he’d debut with an idol group, and before that his heart had ached with uncertainty every time he dreamed of being a singer. The possibility of attaining that goal seemed so small. 

 

But now he’s here. He’s here, and the others are here, and right now they’re not being rushed around or yelled at by directors or having to pretend to be upbeat for fans or being pulled out of bed after only an hour or two of sleep, and that’s really all Sunggyu can ask. 

 

And it’s Christmas.

 

“That is the greatest picture ever taken in the history of the world!”

 

Sunggyu’s stomach plunges when hears Sungyeol’s voice crowing with laughter, and he drops his head into his hands when he hears Dongwoo explode, too, followed closely by Myungsoo, Sungjong, and Howon joining them. God, that picture. He should never have agreed to it. These things always come back to bite him in the ass.

 

“Hyung, you were born to have a flamingo on your head!”

 

“The cowboy hat is totally better—I have never seen anything that tacky, ever. How the hell did you have the balls to even put it on, Woohyun?”

 

“Somebody had to do it, and hyung wasn’t man enough.”

 

Sunggyu doesn’t care that it’s Christmas. He is going to _kill_ Nam Woohyun.


End file.
